Yumi and the Nightmare Painter(27)

Yumi gaped at the gorgeous person, barely noticing when Painter cried out behind her, then waved his incorporeal hands through the door as if to try to shut it.

The woman turned to Yumi and paused, then cocked her head. “Oh,” she said, taking in Yumi’s state of dress. “Um…hello. Are you…a friend of Nikaro’s?”

“She’s going to think we’re sleeping together,” Painter said. “This is bad. She’ll never talk to me again. Quick, uh, tell her you’re my sister!”

“I’m his sister,” Yumi whispered. “Yumi.”

Then immediately panicked.

Her earlier lie about Painter being sick had been a…stretch of the truth. He was sick in a way—he was incorporeal. So while it wasn’t strictly the sort of behavior proper for a yoki-hijo, she could rationalize it.

This was different. This was a deliberate untruth. The sort that she’d never spoken since having impressed upon her—as a toddler—the gravity of her duties and the requirements of the spirits. She cringed, expecting the spirits to rise up and destroy her. She had to be better than such behaviors.

However, no divine recrimination seized her.

The woman across the hall relaxed. “Of course you are,” she said, evidently amused that she’d considered otherwise. “That makes sense. I’m Akane. Are you visiting Nikaro for the first time?”

“Yes,” Painter said quickly. “Tell her that you came to see the big city.”

Yumi repeated the words, numb. Maybe…well, if the hero was telling her to say these things, maybe they didn’t count as lies. After all, the spirits had sent him to her. He must know what he was doing. So instead of worrying, she tried to figure out this woman with the strange dress and kindly smile.

“Close the door,” Painter said.

Instead Yumi asked the woman, “Do you know Painter well?”

“What, Nikaro?” the woman asked. “Well, I knew him in school, and we live across from each other. So…I suppose, maybe?”

Yumi frowned, cocking her head. But then it clicked. Akane lived in his palace. She dressed like this. Painter was concerned she’d think that Yumi was sleeping with him.

“Oh!” Yumi said. “You must be one of his concubines!”

“His what?” Akane asked.

Painter groaned, flopping back onto the altar he’d been lying on before.

“He told me that he’d been with many women,” Yumi said. “Er, intimately, I mean. A hero like him has many such conquests in stories. I apologize for my blush. I am…not experienced. He explained it to me when we were bathing together earlier. He told me all about the hundreds of women he’d been with! I should have realized when I saw you that you were one of his concubines!”

Yumi bowed. It was only proper to show the concubine of an important hero such deference. When she came up from her bow, however, she noticed the look of disgust on Akane’s face. Which quickly became a look of violent anger, Akane’s nose wrinkling in a sneer.

“He said all of that,” Akane said, her voice as cold as the air in this strange place.

“I…” Oh no. She’d misjudged, hadn’t she? Perhaps this was a woman he’d known intimately, but hadn’t made his concubine. That would explain her anger. Except something about the way she was fuming…“You’re…not one of his conquests?” Yumi asked.

“Girl,” Akane said, “your brother has trouble conquering a bowl of noodles if it has too much spice.”

“He’s…a mighty hero though. Right?” Yumi asked.

In the other room, Painter groaned louder.

“Hero?” Akane laughed. Then she turned and stalked away down the corridor, wearing shoes that did not look like they would survive the ground’s heat. But then, Yumi was beginning to think maybe this place wasn’t ever hot.

She shut the door, then put her back to it. “I…did poorly, didn’t I?” she asked.

Painter just continued staring at the ceiling.

“Painter,” Yumi said, “are you a hero? Like you’ve been telling me?”

“I…”

“Painter,” she said, her voice growing firm as she stepped toward him. “Have you been telling me untruths?”

He turned his head and met her eyes. “Look,” he said, “I’m a very good painter. Well…okay, I’m a weak painter. But I’m capable enough, right? So you said you needed someone like me, and I figured…”

He held her eyes a moment, then turned away with obvious shame, flopping back down on his altar again.

“It’s not my fault,” he muttered, “what you assumed.”

Yumi felt a crushing sensation inside her, something squeezing the air from her lungs, her chest constricting.

He wasn’t… She…

She gasped in and out for several breaths, then sat on the floor. It wasn’t warm. How did they live without warmth underneath to bolster them?

“What was I supposed to do?” Painter said. “I got home from work, and next thing I knew, I was in your world. In your body. And there you were, asking for help. And I do consider myself kind of heroic, you know? So…”

“You lied,” she said. “You lied. And now…now I have no idea what’s going on. I thought the spirits sent you to me, and…and that you’d know what to do…and…” She focused on him. “And you peeked at me when I was bathing!”